MUMBAI: Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar has told the Lok Sabha that the government is serious about its plan of digitising Doordarshan’s analogue terrestrial network.

With this, according to Javadekar, Doordarshan will be able to invite private free-to-air TV channels for meaningful business plans.

Responding to questions in the Lok Sabha on 9 July, Javadekar said that the Ministry has granted permission for 795 channels to uplink from the country in both the news and non-news genres.

Surprisingly, even after the huge number of permissions granted, close to 235 applications are still pending for inter-ministerial clearances. Javadekar said that in the last three years and the current year, the Ministry had received 200 applications for new channels in various languages, of this 105 were for Malayalam and Kannada language channels.

He also reaffirmed the government’s stance on the launch of ‘Krishi’ channel for the farmers. The same was also proposed by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitely in the Lok Sabha as he tabled Budget 2014.